


The Harp Of My Country Survives

by copperbadge



Series: Writer In A Drawer 2009 [5]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Children of Earth Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-30
Updated: 2009-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen catches Jack and Ianto in a private moment, long after both of them have left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Harp Of My Country Survives

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Written for round 10 of writerinadrawer. Frankly I didn't think I had it in me to write this kind of story, this exploration of the grief Gwen must have experienced and the way she might recover Torchwood as a part of that process. But, well, here it is. 
> 
> Theme: Photograph (find or take a photo your character has in their possession); added element, a song title.  
> Word Count: Less than 1500  
> Score: 10 (+11, -1). Won the round. 
> 
> Warning: Extensive discussion of canonical character death and grieving.

"Smile for the camera, Ianto."

Ianto -- tinged blue-green and slightly see-through -- straightens and pulls his shoulders back, fiddling with his tie. He smiles, but it's halfhearted.

"Come on, you can do better than that."

Ianto checks his cuffs, speaking with his head bowed. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Anything. Say anything you want. Tell your secrets!" Jack's voice, disembodied, betrays amusement. The blue-green Ianto looks up with a shy, sincere smile this time. 

"What would those be, then?" he asks. "Jack, what do you want a video for, anyway?"

"It's not a video," Jack's voice protests. "This is advanced futuristic technology! It isn't a Britain's Got Talent submission. Although, on second thoughts, sing us a few bars of _Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau_."

"I'm not singing, Jack."

"Well, say _something._ "

"Mm," Ianto grunts, looking almost suspicious. He lets his hands fall back to his sides, then shoves them in his pockets. "I dunno, hi?"

Jack groans. "Ianto."

"What? It's two thousand nine, it's a Tuesday, I'm Ianto Jones," Ianto says. "Turn it off, Jack. Take a photo if you want one so badly."

"Photos don't move," Jack declares. "You can't hear them. They fade."

"Oh, is it movement you want?" Ianto asks, and darts forward, disappearing. The sound remains: scuffling, a thud as Ianto knocks Jack down or maybe Jack pulls Ianto down, Gwen can't tell. She can hear Jack's full-throated clear HA! of triumph, and Ianto's laughter, breathless, struggling -- perhaps Jack has him pinned. There's a soft moan, she can't identify whose, then Ianto's voice again. 

"Turn it off, Jack, I'm not making pornography," Ianto says. With a blip, the recording cuts out. Gwen looks down at the wrist-strap in her hands, wondering if there's a button she needs to push to save it or something. She glances around casually to make sure no-one saw the hologram, but the Plass is deserted.

She hadn't meant to go poking around in Jack's strap. She'd just wanted to pull the tech out of the charred scraps of leather that were left, but the screwdriver she was using slipped and hit a button and then there was Ianto. A hologram, not quite life-sized, fidgeting and scolding and smiling at the invisible Jack recording him. 

Ianto Jones, young forever now, caught in thirty seconds of awkward trying-to-please, of flirting with his boss, of shy confusion as to why Jack would even want this. She wonders where they were when Jack recorded it, horsing around like boys, wrestling and laughing. 

She wonders if Ianto suspected why Jack would want it. She wonders where Jack is. 

Maybe if she knew the right buttons to press she'd find other lovers Jack's had, in the past and in the future that is a part of his own personal past. Jack's held so tightly to his people, but he can't always have done or he'd just -- he'd go mad. Maybe he did go mad. Loss after loss after loss, and maybe the child she knows he killed isn't his first grandchild. Maybe Steven's mother isn't Jack's only daughter. 

God, maybe _she's_ the one going mad. 

"Sweetheart?"

Gwen looks up from the strap to find Rhys standing over her with two cups of tea. She sets the strap carefully across her thigh and accepts one of the cups, scooting over so he can sit on the chunk of concrete that she and the cleanup crew have appropriated for tea breaks during the salvage. Ten feet away, the enormous tent over the yawning maw of the blast crater flaps in the wind. Tourists still gawp; the locals have got used to it.

They're clearing the debris slowly, though at the moment most of the UNIT engineers are on a convoy to the dump or incinerator. It's given Harwood's good business, anyway, and Rhys is always around, ostensibly to oversee UNIT's use of the rented lorries. 

They uncovered the morgue yesterday. The biohazard team swept in pretty quickly. All those who lay in state now lie in ashes, for the protection of the public. They found a drawer door with Tosh's name on it, and asked her what they ought to do with it; there's not even anything left of Owen. Ianto's is the only body that remains to Torchwood, and it's in a cemetery Rhiannon picked, outside Cardiff. Gwen felt she owed Ianto's family that much. It wasn't like she had a place to put it. 

This is her life now: Rubble, rubbish, salvage, and most of the people she loved always just out of reach.

"What is it?" Rhys asks, nodding at the strap. 

"It belonged to Jack," Gwen says quietly. They'd found it dangling from a piece of rebar thirty feet above the Hub floor. 

"Oh?" Rhys's face hardens. "Into the skip, then?"

"No, love," she says, leaning against his shoulder. "Don't be that way. Not today."

Rhys puts his arm around her, kissing the crown of her head. "Sorry."

Gwen leans into the embrace, but her mind won't be still. She has one photograph of Ianto -- well, she has one photograph with Ianto in it. She snapped it by accident while documenting a recovery of some harmless Rift debris, not even realising she'd taken it until she printed the photos for the hardcopy file. Jack must have noticed, because he's looking right at the camera, but he's half cut-off and for once not dominating the image. 

Ianto's closer to centre, leaning back to glance at Jack, a cup of bad corner-shop coffee in one hand. He looks like he blames Jack for the shit coffee and the Cardiff overcast, but can't be bothered to actually be angry. She'd thought it was funny, and it was already printed anyway, so she shoved it in her bag and forgot about it for ages. It had ended up in one of the shoeboxes of photos in the closet at home. 

Gwen cups her hands tighter around the tea, warming her fingers against the chill off the bay. She's grateful she doesn't have more than a photo of Ianto, really. She wouldn't want his voice, the way he moved and laughed and smirked, always in her mind. Grief is partly forgetting, losing the sting of freshness, because the more you remember the more you know you've lost.

Retcon has its appeal, sometimes. The idea, anyway, of being able to forget the last two and a half years, of being able to wipe the slate clean. She won't, she knows that; she owes it to the others to remember them. Still, she's not going to torment herself with the perfect clarity of the hologram in Jack's strap. A photograph is proof that memory is imperfect, and it'll wash away the bitterness of seeing Ianto fidget with his tie and knowing she won't ever see that again. 

The lorries are back, and the salvage crews are filing into the tent for another few hours of sifting and loading. Time she was there too, helping clear away the old Torchwood and slowly piece together the new one. She's hoping to speak to some of the UNIT people when this is over, see if any of her particular favourites want to join up.

"Rhys," she says, and presses the strap into his hand. "Can you find a new wristband for this?"

"Course," he replies, brow furrowing. "Any hurry?"

"No," Gwen says. She kisses his forehead -- oof, bending down is getting difficult -- and turns away. Tonight they'll have dinner and sit on the sofa and watch telly. Maybe after a little while she'll get him to take down the box of photos from the top shelf of the closet so she can find Ianto, coffee in hand, leaning back to look at Jack, annoyed but maybe a little too much in love to actually be angry.

She hopes, wherever Jack is, his memories are fading too.


End file.
